Anchored
by waternymph13
Summary: When Mary Watson dies in child birth and leaves her husband with an earth shattering dying wish John spirals into depression. Sherlock is left to pick up the pieces and sort through the clues to raise a child and save his despondent doctor from himself. A child has a way of anchoring people, but will it be enough to keep these two together? johnlock with some sheriarty. R&R please
1. A Soldier Falls

John Watson was a doctor. John Watson was a soldier. John Watson knew the smell of blood and the scream of a dying man. What he didn't know was how these sounds and smells could be emanating from his wife. He looked on the scene as doctors bustled back and forth taking crimson towels out from between Mary Watson's legs. He prayed that one of the bundles would be a baby, but twenty towels later the only things that he held in his hand were Mary's ivory fingers, her grip growing distinctly weaker with every passing hour.

Mary Watson was an assassin. Mary Watson was a wife. Mary Watson knew precisely how much blood had to be lost to kill a person and what it felt like to be loved. What Mary Watson didn't know was how she was going to be able to tell John that she had passed the limit an hour ago or how she would ever fully explain how deeply she loved him. Each breath tore a bigger hole in her chest and opened it up to let a little more love out. She saw his blue eyes spilling over with tears and fear as his blonde hairs fidgeted because his fingers couldn't. They were too busy trying to tether her down to this earth by lacing them into her own. He was so afraid. That was another thing Mary knew. He would be alright without her. John was, after all, a soldier. They are trained how to fight but also how to lose. John Watson had lost so much already.

Mary Watson knew she could give John two more gifts. She steadied her breathing, and pushed as hard as she could. Her body was empty now. Nothing remained except one last massive gulp of air she had been holding in. She tugged her husband close because each molecule of oxygen was precious and couldn't be wasted over distance. She had given John the first gift and now it was time to give him his last.

"John, I love you. I will always love you. Every second we have spent together has been one of the best seconds of my life. I thank you for them." Mary felt a drip roll down her cheek. She couldn't tell if it was her sweat or her tears or one of John's.

"Mary, we are going to have so many more seconds. A lifetime together with our baby. You've done so well. I can hear the doctors saying she is healthy. Now, Mary, you have to stop talking and let the doctors help you." John knew that doctors saved people. He had done it on countless occasions himself. John also knew that doctors lost people. John Watson had lost so much already.

"John, I need you to listen carefully and don't interrupt." He was wonderfully obedient when she used that voice. "John, I want you to be with Sherlock."

"Mary you don't-"

"John darling, please, I don't have very much air left and I don't think I have the strength to take another breath. I know you have always loved him. The only reason you left him was because you thought he was dead. I know you love me with all your heart but I was loving you on borrowed time. Sherlock is back and I am gone and things will be alright. You have my blessing."

"Mary, I love you. You know I love you. I don't know why you are talking this rubbish. You've been spending too much time with Mrs. Hudson." Mary Watson looked up at her brilliant husband, and knew with time he would understand. He always just needed a bit more time than others.

"Be with Sherlock, John. Be happy with him. Love our daughter. Be loved and let yourself live. Do that for me, won't you dear?"

"God damn it, Mary! God damn it all to Hell! I'm going to be with YOU. I will be happy with YOU. WE will love our daughter! And I will be loved by YOU and no one else." This made Mary Watson smile and then laugh the last bit of air out of her lungs. Mary Watson died feeling more loved than most people feel in their entire life.

It took three security guards to pry John Watson away from his wife. It took three more to keep him away from the doctor who pronounced the time of Mary Watson's death. It took three hours for John to calm down enough to name the baby. John gave her three names, all of people who had died. First name Mary, for the wife he just lost, middle name Lock for the friend who only half died, and lastly Watson for himself who, though he still was breathing was dead once again. Mary Lock Watson would have to live for three.

****************I**

Sherlock Holmes hated hospitals. Very rarely did they ever have anything interesting in them. Just sick people whose disease was already known or dead people who died from being sick. No cases really. There was a mystery going on right now though. Mary Watson had gone into labor precisely 22.35 hours earlier. She was two weeks premature but that was to be expected with a first born. The average labor, even for first time mothers, never runs longer than 18 hours. Sherlock waited and looked for clues as to the whereabouts and status of his best friend and his wife. Hospitals are so sterile and full of dour faces that he couldn't tell what was happening. Sherlock waited. Sherlock wouldn't allow himself to worry.

After 27 hours of waiting and refusing to worry, John walked through the steal double doors. Sherlock knew that Mary Watson was dead. John's pallid face, trembling walk, and blood soaked shirt explained it all. Sherlock knew that the child was not dead or else John Watson may not have come through the double doors at all. His friend, his only friend, came up to Sherlock and tried to look him in the eye.

"Mary…Mary she…"

"She died. I know." Sherlock always knew everything.

"How'd you… Sherlock, I don't know what to do." Sherlock knew that John would keep on living and be a wonderful father.

"You will keep living and be a wonderful father."

"Sherlock, I don't want to hear that right now. My wife is dead and I have a child that I can't raise alone. I don't want you to say anything. There is nothing you can say to make this ok." Sherlock knew John was right and so he pulled his best friend into a hug. He knew that that is what you do for people like John when they are grieving. He felt John's heavy body and realized that John weighed 69 kilograms, just slightly below the national average. Sherlock held 69 kilograms of his sobbing best friend in his arms and for the first time in his life acted on impulse. Sherlock kissed the top of John's head because he thought that was what John needed.

Sherlock was wrong.

"What the bloody hell was that? You don't kiss me. You don't do that! You…." John looked up at Sherlock and couldn't truly see him. John heard the war in his head. He heard Mary screaming and then her last words to him telling him to be with Sherlock. John knew he had something to do with this. "You killed her. You've always wanted us together! You knew with the baby coming we wouldn't be able to be the dynamic duo anymore so you… you must have poisoned her, or or or , you made her eat glass and that's why there was so much blood… you did this to get to me. You can't love so you… you destroyed mine."

"John, you are going through the stages of grief. You are caught somewhere between denial and anger. If you just wait a little while things will calm down. You don't know what you are saying." John didn't know what he was saying but John Watson knew how to hit. He was a soldier after all. One swift crack to Sherlock's nose left just a bit more blood on his hands, but it didn't make the slightest bit of difference. John barreled out of the hospital letting the red of the blood and the black ball of grief in his mind propel him out the door.

Sherlock watched his best friend leave and for the first time in his life he didn't know what to do.

"Mr. Holmes, is it?"

"Yes."

"John has asked you take Mary from the hospital. He has placed temporary legal guardianship in your hands. If you refuse she will be put into child services until her father has had time to recover from the loss and feels fit to care for her."

Sherlock's loss of direction was only momentary as he pieced the information together. John Watson had lost so much already and Sherlock would not allow him to lose anymore.

"Take me to her."


	2. Siren

**hey readers! hoping to make this into a relatively long story if the interest is out there! enjoy**

The room didn't seem large enough to hold the level of noise the screaming produced. Sherlock's normally nimble mind was mired in the deepest levels of annoyance that he had only thought fathomable when forced to attend church with his parents.

"Now listen to me, Mary. I need you to stop this racket immediately." The baby, propped like an explosive china doll in John's armchair, peered out at him for one blessedly silent moment. Sherlock had stared into the eyes of death and had not flinched. He had jumped off of buildings and survived. He had even performed a stirring best man speech to a room full of inane people. But nothing compared to the fear he felt as he entered into a staring match with his most illogical competitor. Humans, as unreasonable and stupid as they were, usually had a method to their madness. This… thing… had no logic, no means of communication, and no ulterior motive other than to survive. Sherlock had met his match. He couldn't reason with Mary, and he couldn't deduce information from her because she was a squalling and pink blank slate.

The Cold War had felt shorter than the stand-off between himself and the child, but invariably all good things must come to an end. Mary drew in a breath, which undoubtedly must have contained most of the oxygen in the room, and let loose a wail that suffocated Sherlock in sound.

"Oh, damn it all to Hell!" Sherlock tried to match the volume of the babe in an auditory arms race but somehow she managed to out-do him every time. "Stop crying! Crying accomplishes nothing! You could be using that energy in so many more productive ways! You probably could have taught yourself French in the time it took you to waste that much air!" A sharp knock interrupted the detective's tirade as Mrs. Hudson bustled into the room. She seemed to be perpetually carrying a cup of tea wherever she went, but now she also toted a bottle in hand.

"Oh, Sherlock, do calm down. No need to get cross because you aren't the only baby in the house anymore. She's probably just hungry." Mrs. Hudson tutted past him but handed along the cup of tea before she did. Through a dubious pout Sherlock took a sip, only remotely comforted.

"I tried that. Hunger is logical and quantifiable. She doesn't need to be changed. Once again that would have been a simple deduction that I wouldn't have missed. She is also obviously not concerned with sleeping, nor does she seem cognizant of my own need for it. I've read all the books on child care. I've tried every technique in said books and none of them work. All she does is wail. I am at my wits end." He couldn't help tossing the child a hefty look of reproach. He didn't like to admit defeat, especially not to an infant.

"Well, love, have you just tried holding her?" Mrs. Hudson, against all reasonable logic, brought the air siren of a human close to her head and bounced her up and down. Almost instantly Mary's decibel desire seemed to lessen and the ear splitting vocal carnage became a hiccupping whimper.

"I don't understand." He really really did not understand. Why would a child want to be held? That wasn't in the core group of basic needs. It did not satisfy hunger, thirst, sleep, or shelter. The quiet hiccupping became a gentle coo as Mrs. Hudson walked around with Mary tightly wrapped in her arms. It seemed almost second nature to the old woman, as if human evolution supplied her with arms simply for the purpose of holding a child.

"Oh, Sher, it's really quite simple. You ever just want to be held? Need it deep in your bones? This little lady felt like she was being hugged for nine months and now she is out in this big scary world. She just needs a bit of comfort that's all. She has already been through so much, God bless her little heart."

The detective tried to understand the information being offered to him, but he couldn't quite relate. He recalled his parents trying to hug him as a child and he had always had a distaste for it. He viewed such displays of affection as a societal ploy to convince one of trust while also subtly and politely asserting one's dominance. So much physical language went into being held. Whose arms were on top? Who initiates and who breaks the contact? Who unconsciously exposes their stomach to vulnerability while the other person hides? Holding someone had never been a requirement for Sherlock Holmes but simply a study in what could be deduced from the silent physical interactions amongst people.

"Give it a go! I think you will like it. And I'm sure she will like you."

"Excuse me? I know you are not one for 'good ideas,' Mrs. Hudson, but that is a particularly bad one."

"Tut, you are Sherlock Holmes; don't tell me you are afraid of holding a baby."

"Mrs. Hudson, do you see me shaking? Are my pupils dilated? It's quite obvious I am not afraid, I simply don't see the point in it."

Before he could argue further the matron passed the child into the detective's arms. Atom bombs have been held more roughly than Sherlock held Mary Watson. For a flashing moment Sherlock felt the warmth of the child radiate through his chest as she stared up at him with what were two tiny marble copies of his best friend's eyes. Sherlock dismissed the sentiment as the natural effect body heat transference has on the human psyche. The two stood frozen in a bubble of apprehensive comfort until, after a few more hiccups, Mary fell asleep.

"Ah, well then, yes, that's quite enough of that. Mrs. Hudson, if you would."

Mrs. Hudson swallowed a laugh as she picked Mary up from Sherlock's thin and anxious arms. He examined her every movement, trying to take note as the experienced mother swaddled the baby and placed her in her cradle. So many things had changed for him in such a miniscule window of time that it was a small miracle to see Mrs. Hudson doing what she did best. She would always be the eternal mother. After several moments of tentative silence to ensure that Mary was, in fact, asleep, the two sat down to finish up their tea.

"How is he?" The question was vague but vagueness was the only way to talk about John these days. After that first night in the hospital, John had gone missing for three days. The hours he was missing for were scathing as Sherlock couldn't investigate his whereabouts, for he had more pressing infantile matters to attend to. At four in the morning John had crashed through the front door blind drunk and had nearly received a whack from Mrs. Hudson before she realized he was not an intruder but the missing doctor.

The moment of his return had roused Sherlock from a light sleep and he immediately ran down the stairs to meet him. By his stance and odor Sherlock knew he had a blood alcohol level that was dangerously high and the theory was confirmed as John vomited in the middle of the foyer. The detective went to help his friend, but John pushed past him and bounced from wall to wall up the stairs, doing his best impersonation of a bowling pin that had sprouted legs. The detective's nose twinged once again where John had hit him and he decided it was in everyone's best interest if he waited downstairs and let Mrs. Hudson handle him. John threw himself into Sherlock's room and slammed the door.

That was three weeks ago.

The only person who had had contact with John since that chill morning had been Mrs. Hudson. He had not left the room to eat or drink, and Sherlock had even spied her carrying a chamber pot in and out on occasion. Sherlock desperately wanted his bed back but much more desperately wanted and needed John back. He wasn't cut out for this imitation of parenthood. He liked to think there wasn't a single problem on earth that he couldn't figure out, but the last few days had left him confounded in every sense of the word.

He needed John. Mary needed John. The room seemed so much colder without John's curious energy buzzing about, and it hurt Sherlock to think that he had somehow caused this depression. Why had John hit him? He had only ever done that once before- well, several times in a very short period of time- but Sherlock had come to realize he deserved those. There was no explanation for this new attack.

"Just about the same I'm afraid. Hasn't said a word, the poor dear. Sleeps mostly, then he drinks and just stares at the ceiling. I've tried coaxing him out of bed, to see you, or at the very least the baby, but he won't budge. Maybe you should try. I know you said he didn't want to see you but you know John, how his emotions get the best of him. You always have such a good way of bringing him back around."

Sherlock sighed. He had explained this so many times to her already but he supposed that the only way ordinary people learned was through constant repetition.

"Mrs. Hudson, I believe you recall the state of my nose upon arrival three weeks ago. I think that alone is evidence enough that John has no desire to speak with me. Had he wanted to, he knows how accessible I am, being that he has holed up in my room. If he wants to see me all he has to do is ask." Sherlock raised his voice on the last sentence in hopes it might carry down the hallway, through the old oak door, and past the blanket of inebriation John had cloaked himself in.

"You boys have always been so stubborn with one another. I swear you two just need to kiss and make up and then you can both get your lives going again. I'm too old to be a new mother again and she deserves two parents, not a stubborn git and an old woman."

"I have nothing to apologize for!" The swift bat from Mrs. Hudson's crinkled hands shut him up.

"Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and say sorry. When someone is upset at what the world has done to them they need something to say sorry, and it usually falls onto the person who they most love."

"Mrs. Hudson, I am sure John would understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps you should have this, what I assume should be touching, conversation with him. The fact of the matter is that John lost his wife, this child will never have two parents, and I have lost my best friend." Without him realizing it a single tear had worked its way to the edge of his glacial eyes, but in a blink it was swallowed whole.

"Oh, Sher…. I know you are hurting too. Don't think I've forgotten that. I miss them too. But he will be back, these things just take time you know?" She rose and cleared away the delicate china and Sherlock couldn't stop himself from observing the slight tremble to the old woman's hands. He was so distracted by his observations that he was caught off guard by the light kiss the woman placed on the top of his hair. "And you are going to make a wonderful father."

"I am not going to be her-" His response was executed by the click of the door latch. Foolish woman. She was so very silly for a smart human being, and Sherlock felt especially silly for feeling her words itch like burs in the back of his mind. They meant nothing, just the overly romanticized ravings of a woman starved for true love.

He unfolded himself from the kitchen chair and began a now worn-out routine of forming a small nest in John's chair. With a final peek at Mary to make sure she was, in fact, still there and not replaced with some imposter, Sherlock closed his eyes to go in search of sleep. He dreamt of the smell of tea and John's eyes, whether they belonged to Mary or the man he couldn't tell. Tomorrow would be better. There was no proof of that, but in his dreams Sherlock had a bit of room for faith.

 **rate and reviews are lovely! I thrive off of feedback and lets me know that people want to hear what's coming next! have a great week and we will see a bit of john when I come back**


	3. Forgotten

**sorry it took so long but here it is! thank you for the reviews they really brighten my day. I intend on seeing this through to the end and it really helps to know how people are thinking. enjoy!**

It's funny how many details you can find in a ceiling. You start off simply. Four lines holding a singular plane in the solid way a mother ensconces a babe in her arms. Then you realize that there are corners, and just how infinitely complicated corners happen to be. Three lines converging into the infinite. You could stare at that alone for a lifetime, but that's not where it stops. The plane isn't really a singularly smooth plane, it's actually a landscape filled with canyons and mountains that the mind can spend a lifetime trekking across. It takes three days for your pupils to completely consume and journey to the peak of a millimeter mountain and once atop you then spend three weeks relishing in your accomplishment and pondering a name for your newly claimed territory. Then onto the canyons as your mind descends further into the valleys of madness. It's in the canyons, those subtle mars along the ceilings skin, that you dwell the longest. You trace along the jagged walls for ages and then you go into the furthest pits, traveling tangentially with your own spiraling depression.

John had found the Marianas Trench of the ceiling.

John missed Mary. She wouldn't have let him wallow and she wouldn't have let him die alone like this. Only, she hadn't really. John Watson had died along with his wife and he couldn't fully comprehend what to do with the remaining corporeal zombie that had survived the wreckage of his daughter's birth. The only thing that made him feel anything more than vast emptiness was the occasional after taste of a memory of feeling Sherlock's lips lightly pressed against his hair.

Medical school had convinced the doctor that he was a smart man, but everything had changed when the detective entered his life. Everyday spent with him was a new lesson in his own stupidity and a caustic reminder that no matter how many books John read, or even if he knew that the earth revolved around the sun, he would never reach the level of genius that Sherlock possessed. And somehow that knowledge confirmed the doctor's deeply rooted suspicion that Sherlock had something to do with his wife's untimely death. Mary was the strongest woman he knew, it seemed a logical fallacy that she would die during something as nonchalant as childbirth. The only logical explanation to John was that Sherlock had been driven mad by jealousy and had somehow killed Mary from the inside out.

He had, after all, acted rather odd at their wedding, and he was the first one to expose Mary's past life without a second thought. John's fossilized insides heaved again and he tried not to be sick for the millionth time. It had to be Sherlock. Donavan had told him from the very first day that they had met that Sherlock was dangerous, that it was only a matter of time before cases weren't enough for him. Why had he not listened?

Mary was an easy target, especially for a sociopath driven mad with jealousy, and it was John's own ignorance that had allowed her to fall prey. Once again he was reminded of his own stupidity and had to swallow the bile that rose like a cannon in his throat. Everyone had always thought they were a couple and he had believed that the rumor was just good-natured teasing, but now he knew others must have seen something he couldn't. A secret smile Sherlock had for the blogger or the way he would talk to him even when he wasn't there. He had been so blind.

He could see everything now. Lifetimes mapped out in the clutter of Sherlock's room, and entire universes of secret desires in the musty smell of his pillow. It felt little used, or at least it used to be. John didn't know what day it was any longer. He used to be able to keep time by when Mrs. Hudson would come into the room, but it seemed like her visits had become less frequent, or that his mind took longer and longer to process reality. He didn't know which was worse. Either he was slowly becoming forgotten or his mind was forgetting that he was alive.

He no longer could find the motivation necessary to perform day to day functions. A day (or was it a week?) ago he had made the mistake of looking at himself in an old antique mirror, half obscured in the corner of the room. He didn't recognize the man staring back. If a skeleton could grow facial hair the image might have been mistaken for John's long lost brother. His mustache threatened to consume his face and merged raggedly with his now almost impressive beard. Mary had hated his mustache, but she hadn't hated it until Sherlock had said how ridiculous it made the doctor look. Why did every memory of Mary have to be tainted with the murderer's touch? John had smashed the mirror then, earning himself a deep gash along his knuckles. Sherlock would be mad. John remembered feeling his gaunt cheeks turn up in a smile at the thought and wondered at how foreign the shape felt on his lips.

He wanted Sherlock to be mad. He wanted Sherlock to hurt. The sadistic desire was in part why he had acquisitioned the detective's room. Sherlock had taken his Mary away so John had to take something from him. He knew the two would never be able to compare but the idea that the porcelain-skinned man would have to sleep on the couch made his heart a little lighter. Not light enough, however, to allow him to get out of bed. He wondered, and even wondering exhausted him, whether anything would ever make him leave the room. The weighty silence seemed to be a response from the universe confirming that nothing ever would.

Silence.

Silence.

Mrs. Hudson sounds like a mouse scratching when she moves in and out of the room. Sometimes she squeaked in John's face. She was no more intelligible than as if John had listened to the confessions of a real mouse.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Music.

The doctor couldn't remember the last time he had opened his eyes, let alone the last time his brain had truly processed any auditory information. He waited and strained the final strings of his sanity as warm rich melody slipped beneath the door and invaded his cocoon of solitude. The resonating waves swelled and seemed to shake the dust out of the corners of the room and break the crust that coated the inside of John's lungs. He gasped sharply, filling his insides like a balloon until his ribs threatened to burst.

The music seemed to be pacing back and forth and the doctor's mind took a moment but then slowly started to paint the image of the man playing. Brush strokes of ebony, porcelain, and navy flecked with bits of frozen silver watered into his mind's eye. The music latched onto the doctor's shriveled emotions pumping them full of memories. The smell of Mary's hair: a bit of lavender and brewing coffee. The way she licked her finger before turning a page in a book and then wiped it on the bed sheet. The small sound she would make right before she would slip into the bed beside him, one of relief and utter contentment. Everything, every memory he ever had of his wife, came crashing down on the broken man and for a moment he thought he was going to drown. He tried to fill his lungs but already found them brimming with the anticipation of a sob. Looking for relief from the suffocating pressure, he tried to wail, but to his horror nothing came. He had forgotten how to make sound and panic rose as he worried he would never be able to breath a cry of relief.

Somewhere, deep in the rotting apple that was his brain, he felt the emaciated worm of his survival instinct wiggle in a tortured plea for relief. Something was very wrong. He had wanted to die but for some reason the thought of drowning in air, his own body simply refusing to accept oxygen any longer, filled his minds with sirens. The sirens sounded exactly like violins. He tried to cry out for help but then remembered that that was the problem. His fossilized legs creaked in protest as he tried to kick the tentacle blankets to the floor only to feel them suction on tighter. And still the music played and played and played. With an ear shattering crescendo John managed to pry himself free of the bed, trembling with exhaustion as his feet touched the cold wood. His nerves rioted against the sudden sensory assault and he almost fell back into the mattress, all too aware that if he did he would never get up again.

He needed someone to remind him how to breathe again. He felt the pressure building up behind his eyes and he thought, maybe if he cried the relief would come, but his eyes seemed to have run dry. His lashes fanned up in down at the same tempo as his screeching heart but still nothing came. He felt the bubble of panic in his chest continue to grow until he was sure it would burst when a long low strain from the violin wrapped around his chest and eased him one step at a time towards the door. Ever oscillation of the bow across the metal strings seemed to give his feet the strength to tug forward.

By the time his hand alighted on the knob his vision mimicked a coy pond, loose and lazy ripples obscuring the confusing flashes of white, orange, and gold he was seeing on the fringes. John thought it had been months since he had last felt air in his lungs and was convinced that he had somehow used up all the oxygen the room had to offer. If he could just convince his fingers to turn the knob he knew on the other side would be an ocean of air waiting to pour down his lungs. The music was fading, however, and he wasn't sure that he would be able to do it without the aid of the riveting sound. A final sweet note was ringing in the air and he knew it was now or never.

He felt his fingers twist and the door swing out to the world that had become foreign to him.

His eyes could never have been prepared for the angelic light that seared directly to the center of his cortex. In all honesty only a single dim lamp burned on a distant desk but it was more than John could handle. He gasped and his lungs filled full of delicious air. When his eyes finally adjusted it was like looking at a scene from a fairy tale. An odd Shakespearian man, who his brain fumbled to remember, was sitting with a small child in his lap. The child was asleep and the man looked half asleep himself but smiled lazily at the babe in arms. A violin sat propped against the chair, a quiet sentinel to the domestic peace that hung in the air.

Sherlock.

The man was Sherlock. His mind, grateful for the new found oxygen, fitfully coughed and shuttered back to life.

Mary.

His daughter.

That's who the people were but it still was somehow not adding up. The man before him was not a killer. A killer could never be so tender with his daughter. A killer couldn't draw lullabies from the air with nothing but a bit of wood, some horse hair, and his elegant fingertips. A killer couldn't make John's heart skip a beat the way it just did. The two perfect people sat unawares, bathed in a dusty yellow light that reminded John of the tired country evenings watching the sun set.

His shriveled lungs finally completely broke free from their chrysalis and a deep sob shook his entire frame. Sherlock's head snapped up.

"John, you are awake…I mean… you are out of your room…my room I mean." The dark haired man kicked himself. He hated when anyone stated the obvious and here he was tripping over an extremely obvious fact. The doctor didn't respond but merely crumpled to the floor looking like a dirty and abandoned childhood blanket. Without a second thought Sherlock placed Mary in her crib and went to him, stopping a few inches from the broken man. The last time he had touched John he had gotten his nose broken and he really preferred to keep that event as an isolated incident. "John… can you speak?"

A deep shuddering sob was the only reply that slipped out of the trembling mass of cloth and bone and hair. As if convincing a wild animal he meant it no harm, the detective crouched to John's level and placed a hand, lighter than a bird on a branch, onto his back. A massive heave was the response to the touch but instead of away the motion pushed the doctor's spine more firmly against his hand. That was all the encouragement the genius needed. He pulled his best friend up off the floor and held him with his newly perfected gentleness. Mary had taught him how to hold another human being when they were upset.

"I'm so sorry." Sherlock wasn't sure if the sound that emanated from the quaking body in his arms was completely human. It sounded like it was choked with dust and years of concrete sorrow. A sharp stab of what Sherlock could only vaguely recognize as sympathy ripped through his chest. "I'm so sorry… I thought you had done it… I thought you took her from me."

"I understand. I can assure you I did no such thing, John. You know I adored her as well." _And you, I adore you_. The words came unbidden into his head and he bit his lip to keep them inside. Thoughtlessly he brushed the fair hair from his eyes and tried not to wince when he saw the hollow blue orbs looking back at him, brimming with tears. "And more importantly she made you happy. I would never take from your happiness John. Not in a million years."

If possible, the man melted even more in his arms. Sherlock knew that John needed medical attention, but for once he held his logical opinion on the inside of his mind.

"Can I…hold her?"

It took a moment before Sherlock could make sense of his friend's words, but once he did he knew he would never be able to refuse.

"Can you walk?"

"I don't think so…"

A problem. Sherlock loved problems, especially ones he could solve. This one was simple. He scooped John into his arms in one fluid motion taking careful mental note that he had lost several stones in weight. He stored the fact in his mind palace and immediately started planning meals in his head that were calorically rich and would get John back in shape in no time. All of this took place in the few seconds it took to carry John to his chair. As if John might shatter at any second, he placed him into his favorite armchair and then just as carefully placed Mary into his thin arms.

All the motion in the universe stopped for a moment and dialed in on the new father holding his daughter for the first time. Cosmically, the attention of life dialed in and Sherlock felt an unexplainable sense of harmony fill the air. He blamed it on the odd barometric behavior the weather had been having lately.

The one thing Sherlock couldn't explain away was the swelling his heart felt as John looked up from his daughter at him with the biggest, most pained smile he had ever seen. Fact: John Watson, his John Watson, was back from the dead.

 **well our favorite blogger in back! as always rates and reviews are much appreciated!**


	4. Cold

_hello my lovely readers! sorry for the delay but life does that. I promise more will keep coming bit by bit if you ccontinue to be wonderfully patient. enjoy!_

The light in John Watson returned like the glow to a halogen lamp that has been off for too long. It didn't begin with light, it began with a tired and frustrated buzz emanating from deep within the external structure. Then, slowly, as morning shifted to night, the luminescence began to press its way out. Anyone who didn't truly know the man wouldn't have noticed the spark that took hold in his deep blue eyes and fewer still would have seen the pink return to the corners of his lips. An average person may have seen that a slight crinkle had taken root where tired crows feet had set up shop. And it would have taken a blind man not too see when John had finally turned back on. Mrs. Hudson witnessed as John's daughter grabbed his finger and finally flipped the switch. John smiled and the old landlord's heart began to beat just a touch more freely.

"She's so big… she didn't come out that big right?" The doctor couldn't understand how his infant daughter could weigh so much. He realized with some distaste that he had probably done a reasonable amount of damage to his muscles while he languished in his catatonic state but it still didn't fully erase just how exhausted he felt from carrying the baby around.

"You were gone for a long time, John. I knew you'd come round but babies don't wait on their father's permission to grow up, especially little girls." Mrs. Hudson smiled warmly hoping her voice could rub some life into the tired man's bones.

"I know…" What he didn't know was how much he had missed. "And he… he took care of her?"

"Took to it like a duck to ice. Some stumbling at first but he just needed to warm up to it. Read every book on parenting he could get his hands on." Mrs. Hudson snorted remembering how helpless he had been the first few days. "Only thing he still won't do is change her nappy, which is odd considering the contents he keeps in that refrigerator. Suppose that will be your job now."

John tried to stretch his fragile imagination to encompass a world that contained a fatherly Sherlock, but the image seemed too absurd. There wasn't a world in which Sherlock could care for another human being. John had seen firsthand that he could hardly care for his own well being, let alone a defenseless child. Sherlock skipped meals, Sherlock didn't understand bank accounts nor cared to pay bills. If you allowed him to he would stay up for days at a time peering into some microscope or setting things on fire. At his core Sherlock was an extremely needy toddler.

"Why hasn't he come out of his room?"

After the initial interaction Sherlock had locked himself in his room without another word. John had thought little of it, but it had been two days and he only saw the detective in bursts of three seconds. He had timed exactly how long it took the long-legged detective to bound from his sequestered chamber to the loo and then back again. It didn't take Sherlock-level deductions for him to realize he was being avoided.

"Poor soul has barely slept. Being a single parent is hard. And he was worried sick over you. All the time you were sleeping Sherlock spent the same time awake fiddling with his violin or figuring out how to hold a baby. Took him two days to do it properly." The familiar emptiness John had grown accustomed to feeling in his chest now felt cramped with bulky regret and it pressed up against his heart making it beat more firmly against his ribs. "I suspect he'll be out soon, bored out of his wits."

"I hope so. I feel responsible for all this." The doctor glanced down at his squirming daughter in his arms desperately trying to not see the familiar curve of Mary's nose on the little girl's face.

"Oh John…you had nothing to do with any of this. These things happen. And poo on anyone who says everything happens for a reason." The old woman looked resolutely at her tea, recounting endless events in her mind's eye. "We're all just happy that you're back with us. All three of us."

"I was talking about Sherlock. He was just trying to help… and I bashed his nose in." The sense memory of Sherlock's nose giving way under his fist made the man cringe and hold his daughter a little more tightly. "I can't help but feel like he's afraid of me."

Mrs. Hudson's laugh, rather than dismissing his fears, only made him feel foolish. She took a moment to compose herself as the teacup in her hand clattered happily against the china plate.

"John, that man isn't afraid of you. He loves you more than anything. If you think a punch is going to scare him off you're as stupid as that Anderson bloke."

She was right. He knew she was right but he just couldn't explain why else he hadn't seen him. If he had spent half the amount of time Mrs. Hudson said he did at caring for little Mary then logically (and John knew that was the only way Sherlock functioned) he would want to see the positive results.

"I've got to be going now. I'll pop in around supper time. Just ring if you need me." The smell of perfume wafted into John's mind as she leaned over and kissed his head. The smell made him miss his mother dearly.

"Thank you Mrs. Hudson. For everything." He tried to lock his cerulean eyes onto his landlady's to accurately convey the weight of his gratitude knowing that any mumble-mouthed attempt at words would only lessen the potency.

"Oh, rubbish. No need to thank me. Just make sure you keep the room tidy now that you're up and about. I'm not your house keeper, you know." And with a pat to Mary's head the sound of her light shuffle and the gentle click of the door closed the conversation. A dower quiet fell over the room as john listened to the little stranger in his arms coo, and breathe, and burble happily.

"Was he sweet to you little one? No experiments I hope." John scanned the flat looking for any fresh scorch marks or bullet holes in the wall but found none. Instead, volumes of parenting books fluttered into his vision stacked upon old case articles. Several tomes were open and spread out on the desks as if he had been reading them all at once.

"The stupid git really did try to read up didn't he?" As if in response Mary let out a tiny tearful hiccup "Sorry. He's not a git. And I meant it with love. I'm sure you'll understand the feeling when you're a bit older."

John's stomach dropped. The weight of his words slowly washed over him like a wave of molten lead, thick and scalding. He had to picture his life, his future, alone as a single father. Mary wouldn't be there to whip him into shape. She would have been just fine as a mother all on her own but she was always the stronger of the two. This child would get older and come to him with a million questions that he wouldn't have the answers to. Like peering through a keyhole down a long hallway he saw an unfathomably long stretch of events he knew little about: dances and boys and blossoming and it sent his brain sparking. As it fizzled faster, he also realized that without question he had pictured Sherlock with him along this impossible journey. The keyhole in his mind expanded, unbidden, and once again he saw boys and dances and blossoming but now accompanied with Mary's final message to him. The words "be with him" echoed in his mind like the ringing of that precise shot Mary took in that hallway so long ago. It was just as earth-shattering and just as loud and just as unavoidable. He felt paralyzed, completely vulnerable to the onslaught his future carried in its incomprehensible arsenal.

As if on cue, acting as a harbinger of his future demise, Mary let out a small hiccup followed by a massive wail. Ever the soldier, his body sprang into action, popping over to the fridge. He pushed the severed head aside and found a sizable stash of prepared bottles. Sherlock was thorough but impractical in his pursuit to care for Mary and John wrinkled his nose reminding himself that they would need, at the very least, a separate compartment for heads and bottles respectively. Grabbing one of the bottles he started warming it on the stove. As Mary's cries grew louder he chastised himself, having forgotten that picking her up might help.

In his burgeoning haste the doctor stubbed his toe on the desk, sending several sheets of paper to the floor and rocketing a string of poorly contained swear words into the air. Hearing her fathers distress sent Mary into a new, and more eloquently shrill cry. Limping over to the crib, the doctor scooped his daughter into his arms and began bouncing her lightly.

"Shhhh, there now love, daddy didn't mean to swear…"

Refusing to be placated by his words, the child squirmed and screamed as if she wished to break free and crawl away to the other side of the earth. The helplessness John felt started to drive a wedge into his heart and with each mounting sob it drove a little deeper. He couldn't do this. He couldn't care for this child. He heard the angry hiss as the water boiled over onto the burner and confirmed his fear that the bottle would now be unbearably hot. "God damn it all to hell."

"May I be of assistance?" The low rumble washed over John like the promised relief thunder carries on its back. The detective, although a large man, moved as silently as a cat and very often would catch his blogger by surprise. This occasion was no exception. With practiced hands Sherlock turned off the stove and set to work preparing a new bottle. Johns mouth hung loosely on its hinges while his daughter continued to fill the room with sound.

"You're up then are you?"

"And you're john Watson."

"What?" Sherlock withheld his gaze and focused intently on the task at hand. John ached to see his face so he could read into the fine print of Sherlock's disposition and perhaps glean a small amount of information on where the two men stood with one another.

"Oh, I thought we were playing a boring game where we take turns stating very obvious things." Sherlock dropped precisely three drops of milk onto his wrist and then nodded in approval. He handed the bottle over to John who immediately offered it to Mary. After a moment's deliberation, like a god offered an insufficient tribute, Mary screamed and pushed the bottle away. A quiet grunt slipped out of the detective as John shrugged helplessly, unsure of how to proceed. He couldn't handle this constant rejection his daughter ruthlessly passed onto him. He had failed her in the first few months of her life and he couldn't defend himself against the barbaric thought that he would continue to fail her for the rest of her life. Tears sprang into his eyes matching the ones spilling down his daughters red cheeks.

"She doesn't want me."

"Nonsense." The word left no room for doubt as the detective strode across the room and gingerly hefted his violin into his arms. He began to play the song John had first woken up to after he had vanished into solitude. The song was a haunting tune caught somewhere between a love song and a lullaby. He would never forget it for as long as he lived. It was the music that had brought him back from the dead. Sherlock continued to play as he walked aimlessly about the flat, dancing with the vibrations he coaxed expertly from the instrument. Mary was resistant at first, wiggling and whining during the first measures, but as the piece progressed the endless well of tears ran dry. With mild trepidation she took the bottle her father held poised at the ready. Sherlock shook out his dark curls in a final flourish as the song concluded and the small hushed breathing of Mary notified him of her departure into dreamland. "I've just spoiled her while you were away. She's not used to eating without a little ambiance. I hope you'll forgive me."

The detective finally gave the doctor his full attention and John couldn't keep the grin from bubbling up. As the silver eyes locked onto him he realized, much to his relief, that the genius before him was just as confused and nervous as he was. Anyone else would have seen a cool aloof exterior of a calculated machine-like man, but John saw the slight downward turn at the corners of his lips, like an unsure bow strung a bit too tightly. He could see the question in his eyes that huddled hidden in the golden flecks of his irises. The man standing before him, bedecked in a bathrobe and slippers, violin hanging with comfort at his side, was scared, but for the life of him John couldn't figure out why. It wasn't his child to raise.

"Do you forgive me?" The question came with more insistence and John realized that his best friend was talking about much more than the cultivated pickiness in his daughter. The doctor set the baby down in her crib and pulled his astonishingly brilliant, exceedingly stupid, sociopath of a flatmate into a hug so firm it squeezed away the idea of needless apologies. The slight resistance that the shock of the intimate gesture brought on never fully left the taller man's body, but he didn't pull away. Quietly, for the millionth time, Sherlock thanked the nonexistent heavens that his blogger had a less keen sense of observation comparatively. Had the doctor been just slightly more perceptive he would have heard the man's heart rate flutter faster and would have come to some silly, flawed deduction.

"Where have you been?" The question pulled the two men apart and hung between them. John still worried that Sherlock was going to vanish back into his room and never come out.

"My room." John sighed at the response. It was never easy with him.

"Yes, I know that Sherlock. I meant what have you been doing in there?" Sherlock sniffed. Had John just asked the correct questions this conversation would be much easier.

"Sleeping."

"Sherlock, it's been two days."

"Has it?" The question from the detective was genuine and John smiled as he watched the man scan the room deducing whether or not his statement was true. After a moments pause acceptance settled on his pale features and he nodded. "How's your foot?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Your toe. You stubbed it. Does it still hurt?" Before john could stop himself he asked his favorite question of the detective.

"How'd you know that?" The two men smiled at one another as the familiarity of the routine gave them a hint of long deceased normalcy.

"Really John, that should be obvious. The desk has shifted and several of my papers have scattered." Sherlock paused a moment to gather the papers from the floor. John marked this as odd, as Sherlock never cleaned, and then even more peculiar as he carefully folded one of the papers and slipped it into his robe pocket. To distract the doctor the detective continued with more fervor in his deductions. "You're favoring your left foot right now, and you used a specific swear that you primarily reserve for minor physical pains. Putting all that together I think the only logical conclusion is obvious even to you."

Even in the minor deductions John still marveled. He was by no means a stupid man but Sherlock's brain functioned on an entirely different plain. He had always wondered, sometimes with fear and sometimes with envy, what it must be like to live in the cerebrum of a Holmes. He imagined that, living with Sherlock, he was the closest to ever come to it besides the man himself. Catching himself in a slight wave of embarrassment the doctor realized he had been gazing at the man across from him unblinkingly. He tried to feel the muscles on his face and recollect whether or not he had been smiling or gaping. He concluded it was a mixture of both.

"It's fine. Thank you." John tried to get in mental contact with his feet but they seemed to have secret plans they wished to enact on their own as they took a few steps towards the detective. "See, works just fine." His laugh came out a touch higher than he meant it too and even to his own ears it sounded strange.

"Good… I'm glad to hear it." A steal curtain had dropped over the violinist's features and John's advance faltered. He could feel the deductions pinging against his skin. He felt every inch of himself being analyzed and stripped bare. Sherlock had the absurd ability to make John feel naked and safe without ever actually touching a single piece of clothing. John took another step towards the detective until they were face to face.

"What deduction are you making now?" John realized he must have gone completely mad as he looked up at his best friend unwaveringly. Normally the height difference never crossed his mind, but at the close proximity John felt foolish and young compared to marble statue gazing down at him.

"You're cold." The doctor noted, somewhere in the back of his mind that the detective had been holding his breath and in the much more immediate area of his own brain that he had been as well. His brow rumpled as his eyebrows tried to meet in the center of his forehead. The taller man remained unreadable. " You're shaking lightly. You've unconsciously moved closer to take some of my body heat. You're much thinner now so you're body is having a harder time regulating its internal temperature."

"I'm not…" John reached out his hand to touch his friend as if to prove it. Like a coiled snake Sherlock slipped his hand into his robe pocket and took a step back breaking the magnetic gaze he had found himself under. John watched as the detective placed his violin carefully back in its case and stayed just out of reach.

"I could make you some tea if you'd like. Or a hot meal. But really the best thing for you would be to get some rest. I can watch Mary for a bit."

"Forget resting! I've been resting for months! I don't want to rest!" The outburst crackled, familiar and hungry in John's chest. He had missed his passion, sometimes mistaken for temper, and he tried to pin down exactly what was rousing his passions now. His volume had caused the detective to look up at him with the incomprehension of child who doesn't understand what they've done wrong and it forced him to calm his tone. "Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. Its just… maybe we can sit and chat for a while. You could help me get to know what habits my daughters picked up from you."

John watched as Sherlock visibly relaxed now that the imminent threat of his touch had passed. He sat down on the couch wordlessly and waited patiently staring at John's armchair. After a moment of hesitation, John sat down in the well-worn seat. He knew he should be comfortable in the seat that had loyally served him, but for some reason it felt too big, the carpeted field between the two of them too expansive. John shifted several times before finally settling into a mild discomfort.

"What would you like to know?" some of the warmth that usually colored the detective's baritones had vanished and it sent a shiver down John's spine. He had so many questions. So many new impulses he couldn't explain that he either stifled or attributed to his renaissance of life. But the first question that kept popping into his mind was 'why are you being so cold?'

"I want to know everything." And he vowed in that moment to find out everything he could about the time he had spent asleep and what had transpired between the only two people he had left in the world. "Starting off with what's in your pocket."

 _and there it is! reviews are much appreciated and inspiring. happy mothers day!_


	5. Tea

thank you all for being patient and a very special thank you to those who reviewed. it really makes my day. I hope they keep coming! enjoy!

"There's nothing in my pocket. Don't be silly, John."

The detective wiped all landmarks of emotion from his face as the lie tumbled from his mouth. He knew it was a foolish lie. He cursed himself for having been the one to advance John's observational abilities to the point where they had become a slight nuisance to him whenever he needed to tell a white lie for John's benefit.

"You're lying. I watched you pick up that piece of paper and put it in your pocket."

The man's cerulean eyes lay trained on his pocket with a marksman's precision. A great whoosh of perturbed air flourished out of the detective as he turned out the deep pockets of his robe. He swallowed the smile that threatened to break out as the blogger's face crumpled into his familiar fingerprint of confusion. The detective knew every line on that furrowed brow better than he knew his mental map of all the London streets.

"But I watched you put it in your pocket. You picked it up off the floor and slipped it into your right pocket. I'm sure of it."

"Mistakes are easy to make when you've been as overwhelmed as you've been. No harm done."

The detective stood and stretched trying to physically distance himself from his own trickery. He didn't enjoy tricking John with sleight of hand. If he was completely honest with himself he couldn't quite figure out why he was lying to his friend in the first place. The contents of the paper wasn't necessarily a secret but quite frivolous and on a need to know basis. The detective had decided in the moment that John didn't need to know. Sherlock felt the man's gaze follow his movements as John's brain whirled like a tired and well-worn clock, noisily and just a bit slow, but maintaining a comfortable and irreplaceable charm.

"Would you like tea?"

"You never make tea."

"I know. I figured if you wanted some you would make some for both of us."

The doctor couldn't help but grin. His flatmate was as tactful as a starving lion digging into its prey, but John wore the tender abuse like a badge of pride. He had seen Sherlock connive, manipulate, and wheedle information out of hundreds of people he didn't care about in the name of a case. He had also seen him shrink, in his own special way, into a frozen shell of the man he truly is when in company he didn't particularly enjoy. The well-meaning, obliviously rude comments were not a symptom of lack of caring on the taller man's part but a relic of comfort the two had cultivated over their years together. A tingle of relief played in John's trigger finger. His best friend wasn't treating him like a piece of crape paper, ready to dissolve in the London fog. Quite to the contrary, he was the same as ever. So how then, the doctor wondered as his brow pulled together again, was it that something felt so very different?

"Or…I could call Mrs. Hudson to make it. You could rest."

John was yanked from his reverie and bathed in two silver pools of calculated concern. He tread water for a few moments, gasping in the realization that everything, despite appearances, was not quite as it used to be. He was back in 221b, yes, but the flat he and Mary had saved up for was sitting like an autumn gourd, hollow and rotting from the inside with memories of another time. He, Dr. John Hamish Watson, had a daughter, and his daughter had no mother, and he had no wife, and no idea what to do, and no answers in sight and…

"You know, if your eyebrow hairs were just a bit longer you probably could have made at least five very fashionable jumpers with the amount of times you knit your brow on a daily basis."

John's laugh came in a surprised little burst, the way a caged finch batters its wings against its prison in hopeful liberation. Funny was a word you could use to describe Sherlock Holmes, but not in the way that would inspire you to buy tickets to his next comedy tour. Sherlock only truly made jokes, as opposed to pointedly scathing witticisms, in John's company. The detective used the man as a comedic safety net, as with even his most awkward and clumsy attempts at humor (John cringed at the memory of the one about the astrophysicist and the atomically unstable teddy bear), he could always draw at least a good-natured pitying chuckle from the blonde and at best a rollicking shared rumble of guffaws. The detective had seen the mental rabbit hole the man had been tumbling down and he smiled as John snapped back into the present time and place.

"That would certainly save me a few pounds. None of mine fit after all the weight loss. I've got to go shopping soon."

"I was going to tell you that they looked like rather large potato sacks but I figured even your observational skills aren't that dull and I'd be being redundant." The crooked grin painted on the detective's face was served up with a side of mischief and before the doctor knew what he was doing he had set the kettle on to boil. The two men became trapeze artists walking the impossible line between trying to make everything seem normal and things actually being normal. The detective slipped into a fetal repose on his chair causing John to wonder, for the umpteenth time, how the tall man managed to fold himself into such small places. He then wondered why he had been staring at him in the first place. A slight warmness touched his cheeks but he blamed it on the steam spewing forth from the kettle's spout.

John's hands bounced back and forth between the two china cups performing delicate surgery on a cup of Earl Grey as his plain cup of Chamomile and cream looked on in worry. Sherlock took his tea with exactly two teaspoons of cream and three fourths of a tablespoon of sugar. If Sherlock had been looking particularly peaky and John had been unsuccessful in persuading the petulant man to eat he would try to slip a whole tablespoon in just to keep his blood sugar up. He was always caught, but Sherlock would drink it anyway with an aggravated huff that said _"I know what dirty trick you've played but I actually appreciate all of your hard work, John",_ or at least that's what he hopped the huff was saying. It very well may have simply meant bugger off.

One of Sherlock's favorite distractions from boredom was watching John make tea. It was one of the reason's he refused to let Mrs. Hudson make it anymore. He didn't want to miss a single opportunity to watch the man hunch over the porcelain the same way he hunched over his telescope. Sherlock loved the care the man put into such a mundane banality. He never got lazy, tossing sugar in like one throws change at a street performer, but carefully measured and scraped each spoon. He stood by the kettle, not straying off to do other tasks while it boiled, because he knew Sherlock hated the interruption of the piercing whistle. John making tea provided a minor mental vacation for the detective, who more often than not had been staring at an ephemeral microscopic world and found the reprieve to be a shockingly grounding experience. As his eyes studied the way John's hair matched the tawny oversized sweater he was wearing, he realized, with mild comfort and slightly more confusing pleasure, that this was his only opportunity to watch John with a guarantee that John would not be looking back.

Something was wrong with his brain, Sherlock had decided as he forcibly tore his eyes away from the back of his only friend. He had become less focused ever since John had woken up. That statement wasn't entirely true. The violinist had become less focused on things he had once been very focused on. He was aware of where John was at every moment, down to the exact inch. When he was hiding in his room recovering for the last few days he would listen to John's quiet shuffle and pinpoint his position on sound alone. He had not had a craving for a case in weeks but instead occupied his mind with ways he could bring John back to the man he once was. His brain had always left an annoying amount of consideration for his friend but it had never detracted from his work. Now he didn't know the local weather patterns, or the flights out of Heathrow. He needed to pinpoint the exact cause of this lack of focus and hyperawareness in regards to John's proximity with his own being.

His fingers hiked up into steeple as he slipped into his mind palace to investigate the cause of the disturbance. Ivory doors greeted him and he pushed them aside with ease. He breathed in deeply, his mental lungs filling with the comforting must of his own knowledge produced by the thousands of books lining the walls. His mind palace had been slightly neglected the last few days as he recuperated from the month he had been caring for Mary and John, and he picked up a few older volumes that had thrown themselves from the shelves. He thumbed through them, being careful not to wrinkle or rip any of the pages, and eased each tome back into their proper position.

He started up the winding staircase, taking a quick stop to peak into the cupboard under the stairs which was crammed tightly with every bully who had ever tormented him. He wasn't a man for sentiment but he had reserved a tiny closet in his mind palace to stock the memory of all the people he found truly repugnant. He made sure the space was absolutely as small as possible. He bent down and peered through the key hole, worried that if he opened the door all the distasteful people would tumble out and leave scuff marks on the floor.

"Sherlock… is that you? Can I come out now?" Anderson's voice, as thin and reedy as if it had to winnow itself down to escape the cupboard and slip under the door, met the detective's ears.

"What? Not enjoying your time with Donovan ? I thought you two were good friends."

Sherlock didn't feel guilty at the imprisonment as they were merely what John would call fantasies. No real harm was done and he had heard normal people dream about killing their boss enough to know in this regard he was in the majority. The man behind the door sniveled.

"There are at least thirty people in here! I don't even know which one she is!"

"Just tell everyone to get on their knees and see where their height lines up on you. I'm sure something will feel familiar." He knew he was being indulgent and strode up the stairs to the musical sounds of Donavan's furious shrieks of "freak!"

The stairs wound around and up in a careful spiral and each step was perfectly sized to fit the length of his stride. He didn't waste his mental space but instead decorated with important works of art that may prove valuable to a case. He paused a moment halfway up to stare at the singular fraudulent portrait he allowed to hang, admiring the fleck of a super nova in the field of black, and then continued bounding up. He overheard Mrs. Hudson cheerily serving tea to Lestrade in his anatomy room and passed by Molly who had her arms loaded with papers. A few leafs fluttered to the ground as she tried to push a stray strand behind her ear.

"Oh hello Sherlock! Just cleaning up a bit. I remember you saying you had been meaning to delete those old records on the Bowerson case so I just bundled them all up. I was taking them to the basement to burn." She laughed then, for no reason, although Sherlock had very little understanding why Molly Hooper ever laughed. "I bet you're looking for John I suppose. He's been making an awful mess. I tried to tell him to stop but he's been so odd since Mary."

Molly continued to speak but Sherlock ignored her and quickly could no longer hear her as he raced up the steps two at a time. _He's been making an awful mess…_ the words started blaring over speakers he couldn't remember installing and followed him up every floor. Breathlessly he opened a mahogany door at the top of his mind palace. As soon as his fingers curled around the knob the blaring stopped and he threw the door open.

He was greeted by John's back and the familiar sent of freshly brewed tea. John was making tea at Sherlock's desk in the most important room in his mind palace, the room where very few people or things were allowed to enter. It contained his periodic table, the first case he ever solved, a packet of cigarettes, Redbeard, and some of the most valuable information known to mankind piled on his desk. The room had always existed and for the longest time he was the only one allowed in, save for the occasional time when Mycroft would barge in unannounced taking away the needle he had brought up to the room with him. Now John made it his happy home, even bringing in a few of his own items like his favorite sweater and chair, his gun, and now a crib for Mary. Sherlock had at first resisted the obtrusive changes, arguing that he had no room to waste on frivolities. John countered that it was, in fact, Sherlock who kept him up here so it was only fair that he be allowed a few comforts. In Sherlock's head John was much more reasonable than he was in the outside world, and there was some extra space in this particular room.

"John, what have you been up to? Molly seems to think you've been making a –"his voice cut off as he heard the distinctive sound of water hitting his desk and then the floor. John had been pouring the tea kettle incessantly and it never seemed to run out of water. With shaking hands he tried desperately to save the papers on the desk, but the water was too hot to touch.

"John stop it this instant! I need these! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

John ignored his plaintive cries and continued to pour more and more boiling water onto the desk causing the floor to begin resembling a very hot swamp.

John had acted up before. The first time was immediately after their run in with Moriarty at the pool. Sherlock had come back to his mind palace and found his special room looking like a bomb had gone off and John crying guiltily in the corner. Against his better judgement Sherlock had forgiven him since no lasting damage had been done. The next time, leaving exempt a few minor books thrown around and items moved, was after Magnusson had nearly burned John alive. Sherlock had learned of John's destructive habits after times of peril and immediately checked on him. Sherlock found him setting several pages ablaze. Luckily he managed to put them out before they were completely consumed by the fire. He refused to speak to John for a week after that, much to the doctor's perplexion.

This time, however, was different. John's life had not been threatened, nor was he in any immediate danger. Sherlock also couldn't figure out a way to get him to stop. Redbeard coward in the corner, his paws becoming slightly singed as the whole floor became saturated. He tried to think but as he was already in his own mind palace he found it very difficult for his mind to go any faster. If John would just say something maybe he could reason with him, but the sadistic lunatic with the tea kettle remained silently pouring and pouring. Sherlock watched, helpless to save his drowning thoughts. He looked down at the soggy papers he cradled, each one lolling like a fragile newborns neck.

He shoved his hand deeply into his pocket in hopes of finding something, anything at all that might put this torture to and end when his fingers brushed against the paper he had stored away. In a panic he tore it from his pocket and, acting on sheer impulse began to read aloud.

"Dear John, I know I am not one for sentiment, nor, as you well know, one for speeches, but I write to you in what can only be described as a fit of delirium. Its been two weeks. Two weeks since you've locked yourself in my room. I don't understand what I've done wrong, although that is usually the case. But this time, John, you are not there to explain to me what idiotic made up social offense I've committed because somehow I've committed it against you." The pouring eased but still continued as John peaked over his shoulder at him. Sherlock needed John to stop completely but he truly didn't want to read on. The note had been written at his bleakest and was clearly a product of a mind that was not fit to converse proficiently let alone make professions of any sort. Through gritted teeth he tried to appease his friend. "I know I can be a fool, John. I know I can be stubborn and downright cruel but you've always stayed with me. When you got married I will admit to some feelings. I will not elaborate on them because they seem drastically inappropriate. But it is important that you know despite these feelings I still felt I kept a small piece of you. You remained in my mind palace although you sometimes left me for a locked room I could not enter. The point being, John, I still had you for my own, even if it was just a small corner you'd allow me. Now you've locked me out of my most important room. I realize John that when you're not around I can't get to the most important things in my life. You hold that key…" Sherlock voice broke deep in his chest as he began to feel the heat rising into his shoes.

"That key to my complete happiness. I now think I can understand the pain you felt standing at my grave, although I believe you feel less strongly for me. I was dead for you but you are alive and out of my reach, a fate somehow worse than the concept of your demise. You asked for a miracle on that day and got it so now John, I ask from the very limited depth's of my heart, for you to come back. I fear if you do not I may never be happy again. I need you." The sluice had slowed to a placated drip, but John's hand remained poised, ready to upend the whole thing if Sherlock did not finish.

"I have been diagnosed as being incapable of falling in love. I had also diagnosed myself as being incapable of having a friend. If I was wrong then the doctors most definitely could be wrong as well. You are a doctor… perhaps if you came back I could get a second opinion. But I will never know if you don't come back. Infinitely yours, Sherlock Holmes."

The paper crinkled softly as he refused the tears that had attempted a renegade breach. He simply would not contribute any more to the water damage.

"So do you think you're in love with me then?" Damn logical mind palace John always asking the right questions. Had Sherlock read the note to real John he would have spent hours getting hung up on all the wrong questions and Sherlock would have had more time to come up with a proper evasion.

"John, I was desperate. I didn't know what I was saying. I knew if I appealed to your emotional nature it may be effective. It was all a lie Jo-"

In one swift motion John poured a face full of boiling water onto the surprised detective.

The shock of the violent action catapulted the man back into reality. His limbs flared and knocked the cups of tea John had been trying to carefully place out of the doctor's hands. Gravity did the rest and Sherlock ended up with a sopping wet robe and several minor burns on his chest.

"Bloody hell Sherlock, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

The look of anger dissolved into a look of concern as Sherlock quickly grabbed at his chest. Instinctively John yanked the fleece blue fabric aside and frowned at the red welts already pushing their way to the surface of the alabaster skin.

"I'll get a cool cloth." Sherlock pulled himself to a sitting position and put a cool finger to where John had yanked his clothes apart. He felt a burning fire in that section and was confused when John kept pressing the rag elsewhere. Could he not see the marks where his fingers had scorched his skin? Surely it had to be black and red.

"I'm alright john. Calm down." The smaller man had started to frantically shake and pat at his chest. Sherlock was not completely alright but he needed John to stop touching him before he screamed.

"You are not alright. I burned you, Sherlock. I'm so sorry." The boundless upset welling in his blogger's eyes was deeper than the shade of blue could hold and threatened to spill over onto the man's cheek's. Sherlock's chest ached, not the skin, but much more deeply. It felt as if someone had taken a fist sized stone and lodged it safely in the left side of his ribcage.

"I'm tired, John. I need to go to bed."

Without another word the detective pushed past John and closed the door behind him. The blogger's mouth hung precariously low and he wondered if he had managed to push the detective back into hiding again. As soon as Sherlock was satisfied with the clicking of the door he flopped face down and a moan erupted so low and deep he felt his toes vibrate. He had to get a grip. He had to clean up his mind palace. He had to burn that letter to John and delete any recollection it had ever happened. He set to work bit by bit mopping up the spilled tea and ink-smeared memories off the floor as John looked on tearfully. Every so often he would come over and try to touch the detective's chest where the odd heaviness had appeared but Redbeard would growl in warning and he would retreat to his marshy chair. After several hours of maintenance all the papers were dry, Redbeard had a sleepable bed, and the carpet was covered in towels. Sherlock would have been content to spend all night in his mind palace glaring at John, mentally willing him to behave himself and to stop causing such chaos in his mind palace, but he heard a distant knock in reality. His eyes recalculated back into focus in the dark room. Another knock confirmed his assertion .

"Sherlock… can I come in?" John almost never entered Sherlock's room, nor did he enter the doctor's. It was such a curious request that Sherlock called back an affirmation before he could think it through. The door opened spilling light in alarmingly fast causing Sherlock to shield his eyes. John quickly closed the door but did not turn on the lights. Sherlock, effectively blinded by the flash, was forced to listen as footsteps approached the end of his bed.

"Listen, I'm sorry I burned you. It was an accident. You were right, I am still exhausted. I didn't sleep well last night…" The words hung in the darkness and John tried to bridge them to his next sentence with a chuckle. "I think I got used to sleeping in your bed… and I'm not used to sleeping alone." Sherlock made no attempt at speech and John knew it was because he was not asking the right question. In a final torrent the blogger swallowed his pride. "And it's perfectly fine to say no I just was wondering, and again keep in mind you can say no because I know you like to spread out, but I was wondering if I could spend the night in bed with you. Wow that sounded wrong… could we share- wait no that's not right either… we wouldn't have to touch it's a big bed, I mean of course we wouldn't touch…"

"John please just say 'Sherlock may I lie in bed next to you for tonight as I would find great comfort in it' and we both can be put out of this awkward misery. I understand the concept of physical comfort and how it has no reflection on your unfaltering sexual orientation."

"Sherlock may I lie-"

"Don't actually say it, John. Please just stop talking and get in." Ever the obedient soldier, the man carefully climbed into the bed, jumping slightly when his arm brushed Sherlock's. The green light of the baby monitor Sherlock kept at his bedside was the only light in the room and the two men were left ensconced in shadow to wonder how exactly they had ended up in bed together.


	6. Just Holding

Once again sorry for the long wait. Moving, and two new jobs does that. I hope this chapter makes it worth it. If you like it let me know and if there is any way I can make it better especially let me know! Enjoy!

It is universally acknowledged that children fear the dark. They fear the boogeyman, and monsters under the bed. They fear witches and ghosts and things that have no name but slobber and growl with clawed paws that threaten their safety. Their fears are often dismissed as childhood whimsy but what nobody sees is the well-founded reality of their fear. It is not the monsters that make children fear the dark but the _possibility_ that they may exist. Children fear the possibility of the dark and the idea that their only half realized grasp on reality is tissue thin. Now, as silence hovered over the two men, John Watson was afraid of the dark, and the possibility of what may exist.

A divide of covers separated the two men and John listened carefully to the accordion rhythm of the other man's breathing. He was keeping good time with a steady in and out and John tried to match it, hoping to lull himself to sleep, or at least convince the other man that he had succumbed. It was quite useless. Thoughts, innumerable, buzzed like lazy flies in his head. They would alight on his consciousness one at a time and as he shooed one away another would descend, upturning its acidic stomach contents on his peace of mind. He was beginning to think he had made a mistake in coming to the detective's room but the thought of his own bed made him shiver. Something about an empty bed had always reminded him of a grave. There are never two bodies in a coffin, so if he was with someone the silk sheets didn't remind him quite so much of the macabre box.

The doctor had turned his back on his friend and watched as darkness settled in his eyes. The room that had, only moments ago, been awash in pitch was settling into a midnight blue. He could make out the now familiar shapes of the bureau, the slightly open closet, and the fluttering curtains as they solidified and reminded him of the time he had spent wallowing here. He took stock of his surroundings, as any good soldier does in a time of distress, only to find the shadows of anxiety creeping in corners preparing for an ambush attack. He turned his back on the army of memories and refocused his gaze.

In the darkness Sherlock's ivory skin glowed. The small green light from the baby monitor didn't compete with the natural luminescence of the marble man but lent his skin an ethereal under-leaf life, incomparable to anything the doctor had previously witnessed. His eyes raced along the sinewy muscles that expanded and contracted with each breath and a large knot began to form in his throat. He felt the distant alarms of a panic attack, an assault he knew he could not suffer in silence. He had to call out for help.

"You still awake?"

"I wasn't until you asked me if I was."

The pale man could almost feel the heat radiating from the other man's cheeks. Sherlock could never quite understand the man's susceptibility to embarrassment. Then again he very rarely understood the social rules and constructs one must break to feel embarrassment. He turned over in bed, causing the covers to shift lower on his body and the two men to be face to face. Sherlock's vision wasn't very good in the dark and he wiggled a few inches closer until he could make out the pleasant peaks and valleys of John's face.

"I assume you had some sort of reason for waking me up."

"I couldn't sleep…"

"…and?"

"sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep."

He had been foolish for saying anything in the first place. His eyes were almost completely adjusted to the dark and he searched for some level of empathy in the other man's eyes. What he found were two pupils blasted into endless black pools, siphoning any available light and information deep into the chasm that was the detective's superlatively enigmatic mind. Somewhere, surely, there had to be an experience he could draw on to relate to John's restless insomnia. The doctor knew the man barely slept, his rocket brain too busy tearing itself to pieces, so he must understand what it's like to have anxiety snapping along every synapse.

"I can hear you thinking."

"I'm sorry, I'll politely ask my anxiety to keep it down so you can get your beauty sleep." Irritability. John silently chastised himself for letting his fear mutate into the familiar monster of frustration. He knew his little snarky outbursts never registered with his flatmate as a personal attack. Even as the words left his mouth he knew the other man had psychoanalyzed them and would be logging them away in a mental file labeled "John's misdirected aggressions". He shuddered to think how large that file had become.

"Are you alright?"

Although immune, and often amused by the blogger's petulant frustrations, Sherlock couldn't help but worry. He was in an unfamiliar situation, one in which he had very little practical knowledge. He had only shared a bed with Mycroft, and that was only on a single occasion when he was twelve and the incompetent travel agent had bungled his parents rooming request during their vacation in France. Beyond that adolescent unpleasantry , he was a total stranger to the decorum of sharing a bed and felt he had to cede to John's sentimental tendencies, seeing as he was the expert in this situation.

"You know, I don't think I am." The honesty took both men by surprise. The doctor's obsession with maintaining a certain level of normalcy, however thin and delusional the façade may be, had always forced him to subscribe to the knee jerk responses when it came to questions of mental well-being. He could distinctly remember the rare occasion he had responded to his therapist's "how've you been, John?" with anything other than a well measured "been alright. And you?". It was just what people did. Nobody really expects the truth when they ask that question. It was one of those silly social constructs that all of England somehow decided upon. A construct that he was sure Sherlock would never waste his time with. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, very few people asked Sherlock how he was doing. And even more rarely did Sherlock ask someone else how they were doing. John had always assumed that Sherlock either deduced their state without needing to ask or simply found that sort of information unnecessary. It was this rarity that wrung the honesty out of the doctor.

"Well… why aren't you alright?"

John's laughter made the detective tense up. He often did things that made his friend laugh but it was almost never purposeful. Usually it didn't bother him; the laughter never had the cruel edge that would transport him back to his days on the playground, where vicious Neanderthal spawn did their best to smite his genius with derision. This laughter, however, was alien to him. It was riddled with the metallic clang of bridled tension.

"Sherlock, the love of my life has died, I have a daughter who I can't look at without seeing her mother's face, I have barely resurfaced from a violent depression, and I am a fully grown man who has seemingly acquired a very real fear of the dark. My life hasn't just been upturned, it's been bombed, blown to smithereens. I don't know who I am, what to do, and I can't seem to get my brain to quiet down for more than three seconds. And you… you've been acting oddly, well oddly for you, well, not oddly… I don't know… you just… it's not the same between us anymore. And Mary said…"

He finally put screeching breaks on the verbally derailed train that had come barreling out of his mouth. The darkness and close quarters were more than willing to cradle all of his pent up truths but he knew he wasn't ready to make Sherlock privy to Mary's final words to him.

"I'm sorry… I just won't be alright for a while. I'm…I'm trying though. I'm sure I'll get there."

The room felt like it finally had begun to breathe again and the stifling repressed energy began to dissipate. Even the city crickets picked up their chirping violins and lent a tasteful soundtrack to the silence that rest its head on the single pillow the two men had somehow come to share. John waited for the imminent response. He waited, in full knowledge that he was about to receive a perfectly logical lecture on why he shouldn't be so upset, death was an inescapable part of life, and darkness is simply an absence of light, no use crying over the departed or fearing something benign and intangible. He would dismiss it all as foolish sentiment and the doctor couldn't deny that factually he would be correct.

"…is there anything I can do? To help, that is." Perhaps, the doctor pondered, he had actually fallen asleep and this was some hyper realistic dream, only just now straying into the realm of the fantastical world where Sherlock Holmes offered emotional support rather than a lecture. He discretely pinched himself only to find the same two expectant silver shards gazing at him. They were waiting for an answer but the doctor found his endless well of words had inopportunely run dry.

The burgeoning dawn pressed eagerly at the edges of the drawn curtains, prying to see what had transpired between the two men in its absence. John's heart willed the sun to wait just a few minutes before it shattered the porcelain figure's new found indulgence. He knew that with the new day reality would be restored. He would be a father again. Sherlock would be a high functioning sociopath and the most brilliant man in the world. But in this flickering moment none of that mattered. Sherlock cared. He cared about John and that was enough to make all the monsters in his mind slink back to the sewers and catacombs they had come from.

"John…" the way his name sounded, rolling like hot baritone lava out of the detective's mouth, warmed John to the core. An odd, fuzzy little thought burrowed into the doctors sleep-deprived mind and made a happy home there. It didn't feel unfamiliar. It was a thought that played on the periphery of his mind, usually making its home in that soft stretch of land between waking and sleep. He had noticed it before but this was the first time it had ever dare venture into the forefront of his consciousness. The thought stretched its legs, happy with all the attention it was now receiving and refused to leave, even with the doctor's insistence. He wanted to kiss Sherlock Holmes.

He became acutely aware of the feeling of the other man's breath tickling his nose. Somehow Sherlock Holmes didn't get morning breath. He seemed too posh for it. His usually caustic tone seemed to cleanse his palate of any offensive mars. John, however, knew that he got and currently had morning breath. He could taste it at the back of his throat, or maybe it was just the aftertaste of anxiety, but he tried to reason with the thought using his halitosis as ammunition. If Mary refused to kiss him in the morning, why would his best mate ever agree to?

The ridiculousness of his train of thought finally caught up with him. He had barely slept in the last 48 hours and the effects were beginning to show. Obviously he didn't want to kiss Sherlock, he was just sleep deprived and lonely. Trying to fill the hole that Mary had left in her wake. Kissing Sherlock would be like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with the contents of a child's sandbox. And besides, he was Sherlock Holmes …and besides, John was straight… and besides, that was just something that couldn't and would never happen.

"John, I want to be of assistance."

"Maybe just… could you maybe hold me for a bit? Whenever my PTSD got bad Mary would just hold me and it would make it a little better."

Although he had refused the original thought, holding was different. Holding could be platonic. Sherlock had said himself that he understood the concept of physical comfort, and in this moment nothing appealed more to John's needs than a hug.

"Just holding?" For once the ever present self-certain quality that pervaded Sherlock's voice vanished. He sounded tentative, afraid almost, as if he wasn't quite sure he could physically accomplish the act. John's patience had begun to wear thin as his body begged for comfort and sleep. Wordlessly he closed the now miniscule gap between the two. The taller man's arms ensconced him so delicately, two unfamiliar wings taking their first stab at the impossible concept of flight. But like a bird to the sky the position came naturally to the two men, the doctor finding himself nestled below the detective's chin in a marble spot that seemed to have been carved just for him.

The world had moved onto the second act as bird songs replaced the crickets' orchestra. John's mind finally slowed to a sluggish trundle and the funny furry little thought began doing back flips as it was welcomed back into its primary lucid terrain. It was inescapable, un-ignorable, and in the moment the most logical thing in the quickly fading conscious world around him. The doctor smiled, knowing how much Sherlock appreciated logic. In fact, the furry little thought argued, he would be mad if John didn't listen to this very logical thought.

The strong arms around him felt logical and right, the quiet breathing mixing with the ever growing dawn light felt logical and right and the sleep deprived, anxiety-addled doctor did what his heart and mind thought to be logical and right. He wiggled up, a journey of only an inch or two and gently kissed the man he had come to know and care for deeply. The brief moment where their two lips met was the most right John had felt in months, maybe years. He slipped back into his little hollow not realizing fully what he had just done and fully content on making a quick getaway to dream land, if he wasn't there already.

Suddenly the room dropped ten degrees as the comforting embrace became a frigid abandonment. Sherlock was out of the bed and dressed before John had time to open his eyes. He dragged his mind from the brink of unconsciousness and his actions finally dawned on him.

"Oh God…Sherlock…I'm so- "

The slam of the door shut his mouth. Panic returned with cavalry as the doctor threw himself out of bed. The chill hard wood floor bit into his feet only reminding him further of the insanity he had just committed. He heard the definitive thumps as Sherlock rocketed down the stairs. His body was still recovering and he cursed his cement feet into a quicker pace, stumbling on the last step and watching the navy coat tails flutter a jaunty goodbye as the door to the apartment building sealed his fate.

Mrs. Hudson, with the morning tea, tsked as she eyed the door.

"Where is he in such a hurry that he thinks he can skip on breakfast? And you, young man, shouldn't be running down the steps. You're going to trip and break a hip. It happened to my friend Barbara just last week."

John simply stared in disbelief at the vacant foyer where his best friend had just been.

"Of course Barbara is 82… and a bit daft." Mrs. Hudson's smile turned to a frown as John picked himself up off the floor. "Everything alright, dearie?" And for the second time in twenty-four hours, John had to be honest.

"No. It's not." His entire body rattled. Sherlock was surely gone forever. Or worse… he would come back and the doctor would have to explain himself. Face up to all the years of ignoring that little thought. He could just say it was a mistake. That in his condition he lost track of reality and his habitual nature mistook him for Mary. Even the thought sounded hollow to his minds ear. He had kissed Sherlock knowing full well who he was kissing. His heart crashed around his chest shattering every preconceived feeling he had ever had and his lips began forming the sentence against his will.

"I just kissed him."

"You what?"

"I just kissed Sherlock Holmes." And as the words left his mouth it all became horrifyingly real.

The tea set clattered to the table as Mrs. Hudson supplied a swift slap to the back of the doctor's head.

"What the bloody hell was that for?!"

Mrs. Hudson already had her cellular out and was dialing as quickly as her arthritic fingers would allow.

"You don't 'just kiss Sherlock Holmes'!" Her eyes flickered worriedly to the door. "Nobody's ever done that! He can't handle it. Especially not coming from you… oh goodness. I just hope he's alright."

"Alright? Why wouldn't he be alright? I'm not poisonous." A pointed finger silenced him as Mrs. Hudson pressed the phone to her ear.

"Yes, Mycroft, dear…. We've had a bit of an event here… yes yes… everyone is alright. It's just John and Sherlock had a bit of an interaction… yes well we did all see it coming I know… but I think it's shaken Sherlock up a bit. I'm afraid it might send him back to some old habits. Would you mind terribly checking up on him?" She paused and a small smile eased back onto her beautiful and withered face as she watched the doctor do a wonderful impression of a chameleon trying to hide in front of an apple. "You're such a dear Mycroft. Thank you."

The mortification John Watson felt could not be put down into one of his blogs succinctly if he tried. Nothing made sense. The sweet matron gave him a gentle pat on his shoulder that did nothing to comfort him.

"I hate to be the sort of person who says I told you so… but I always knew you two would end up together."

"It was just a kiss. We're not- "

The screams of the hungry baby cut his pointless retort short. His paternal instinct overrode any need to defend his heterosexuality and he leapt up the stairs two at a time grateful to have anything to distract him from the nightmare he had created. Just as he was about to shut the door he heard Mrs. Hudson's musical laugh.

"I already told you dearie. You don't just kiss Sherlock Holmes."

Thank so much for reading! Hopefully next chapter soon which will be an entirely Sherlock driven one. Some new faces will make an appearance. Reviews make me so happy. Peace and love everyone


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